Bitcoin News Summary – May 14, 2018

Bitcoin’s price came close to the key $10,000 level last weekend but failed to overcome it during this week. Late in the week, the price fell below $9,000, accompanied by negative news out of Asia. The rest of the crypto space also plunged reflexively, with most major coins declining twice or even three times as much as Bitcoin.

South Korean prosecutors conducted a raid of the country’s largest Bitcoin exchange, UpBit. Hard drives and ledgers were seized as part of an investigation into alleged fraudulent practices. UpBit is suspected of selling crypto to phantom clients.

The trustee handling the Mt. Gox bankruptcy case has sold a further 8,000 bitcoins this week, in 4 batches of 2,000 coins. Previous liquidations by this trustee, seemingly conducted without regard for market effects, have also exerted downward price pressure.

China’s Huawei corporation placed the BTC.com Bitcoin wallet in its application store. As the Google Play Store and portions of the iTunes store are banned in China, Huawei’s AppGallery is likely to become a popular download destination for Chinese users seeking a mobile wallet.

Finally, Dandelion – a prototype code for a new privacy-enhancing feature for Bitcoin was released. Dandelion prevents the linkage of IP addresses with new transactions. It works by routing a new transaction through a random series of nodes before broadcasting the transaction to the entire network.